o absinthe and illicit relations."

She breathed heavily, and looked at Mr. Woods as if, somehow, he
was responsible. Then she gave the name of the book to Petheridge
Jukesbury. He wished to have it placed on the _Index Expurgatorius_ of
the Brotherhood of Benevolence, he said.

"Dear, dear," Felix Kennaston sighed, as Mr. Jukesbury made a note of
it; "you are all so practical. You perceive an evil and proceed at
once, in your common-sense way, to crush it, to stamp it out. Now,
I can merely lament certain unfortunate tendencies of the age; I am
quite unable to contend against them. Do you know," Mr. Kenneston
continued gaily, as he trifled with a bunch of grapes, "I feel
horribly out-of-place among you? Here is Mrs. Saumarez creating an
epidemic of useful and improving knowledge throughout the country, by
means of her charming lectures. Here is Mrs. Haggage, the mainspring,
if I may say so, of any number of educational and philanthropic
alarm clocks which will some day rouse the sleeping public from its
lethargy. And here is my friend Jukesbury, whose eloquent pleas for a
higher life have turned so many workmen from gin and improvidence, and
which in a printed form are disseminated even in such remote regions
as Africa, where I am told they have produced the most satisfactory
results upon the unsophisticated but polygamous monarchs of that
continent. And here, above all, is Miss Hugonin, utilising the vast
power of money--which I am credibly informed is a very good thing to
have, though I cannot pretend to speak from experience--and casting
whole bakeryfuls of bread upon the waters of charity. And here am
I, the idle singer of an empty day--a mere drone in this hive of
philanthropic bees! Dear, dear," said Mr. Kennaston, enviously, "what
a thing it is to be practical!" And he laughed toward Margaret, in his
whimsical way.

Miss Hugonin had been strangely silent; but she returned Mr.
Kennaston's smile, and began to take part in the conversation.

"You're only an ignorant child," she rebuked him, "and a very naughty
child, too, to make fun of us in this fashion."

"Yes," Mr. Kennaston assented, "I am wilfully ignorant. The world
adores ignorance; and where ignorance is kissed it is folly to be
wise. To-morrow I shall read you a chapter from my 'Defense of
Ignorance,' which my confiding publisher is going to bring out in the
autumn."

So the table-talk went on, and now Margaret bore a part therein.

*